Rating: NN
To launch a new series of 10 Impulse! artists’ single-disc best-of collections (Albert Ayler, Gato Barbieri, Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and McCoy Tyner), Verve has released the four-CD collection The House That TRANE Built as a sampler. But the track selection by Impulse! chronicler Ashley Kahn seems to be geared to the 60-plus demographic, leaning toward light and easy tunes by the label’s old guard at the expense of the exciting, funky and explosive music on which the Impulse! label made its rep. The decision to feature the slower, softer numbers by Earl Hines, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Paul Gonsalves and Pee Wee Russell might play better on smooth jazz radio and provide pleasant accompaniment for a dinner party. But leaving out the jarring, confrontational stuff misrepresents the label’s essential avant thrust. Impulse! lite.
